RANDOM REMINDER

Press, Volume CVI, Issue 31092, 22 June 1966, Page 28

RANDOM REMINDER

FAILURE

It is eminently satisfactory to discover that while those thousands of busy bodies at Cape Kennedy were heavily engaged in preparing for the Surveyor moon shot, the march of science went on uninterrupted in other parts of the world. It is unlikely that the Russians were idle in any of their many spheres of endeavo ir, such as soccer, and successful moon shots. Elsewhere, too, the best brains in the w( rid have been engaged in the unremitting battle against disease and death; there has been some activity ’n electronics; industry, in all its guises, has been working earnestly towards further advances and improvements; and in Britain, teams of experts have spent months at two

universities trying to make the perfect jelly—one that doesn’t flop, split, sag or collapse slowly on a plate when turned out of a mould. The scientists say the perfect jelly should jump back smartly into shape after being in a mould, and it must be easy to chew. But their months of work have so far been in vain. All the experimental jellies made, it was reported—and there have been hundreds, at high cost—had one fault They wobbled. This, surely, is a clear case of science being blinded by science. Here at the universities, these boffins have been at it for ages, baffled by the worrying fact that their jellies wobble. And all that time, all that effort, all that

Though gome of the mob'll Delight in h wobble ft OP TASTE PpEFEPS TELLY CHASTE

money have been spent on false premises. Surely the basic requirement of a jelly is that it SHOULD wobble. The jelly industry aims principally at children, yet it seems to be unaware that the principal customers take much delight in striking their jellies smart blows with spoons to set the shiny, coloured stuff shaking and shimmering. Might as well go for a non-runny egg. a silent-cooking bacon, coffee without aroma. And the writers . . . “He stood there, shaking like a badly-made jelly.” No hint of derision should be read into these observations. There seems to be rather more merit in trying unsuccessfully to produce a perfect jelly than turning out a perfect hydrogen bomb.